Hope for Haiti

Recently I chose to spend a weekend living in "poverty" in order to learn more about myself and the world around me. During that weekend, I found out about a program that allows orphans in Haiti to go to school and get an education. And guess what? It only costs $100 to send a kid to school for the entire year! A hundred dollars. That amount just struck me. I mean, I could easily spend $100 in a matter of minutes at REI, the mall, or even the grocery store these days.

At first I thought to myself that giving $100 to help a kid in Haiti would be an easy thing for me to do. Then I thought about the opportunity to get other people involved in this effort. So, I present to you, THE $1 CHALLENGE:

I am looking for 100 people who would give a dollar to help send a kid in Haiti to school for a year. A dollar. Think about that for just a second.

I have already approached a few people regarding this challenge and they keep on asking if they can give more than a dollar. I really like the idea of finding 100 people to get on board with this, so here is my promise to you. All of the extra dollars given will go into a jar and we will send as many kids to school as the jar will allow. Make sense? Great.

Do not even let yourself wonder for one second what you get out of this. The real question to ask yourself is what do these kids in Haiti get out of this?

For decades, Haiti has remained the least-developed country in the Americas. Somewhere around 80% of the population lives in poverty. 80%!! As of 2003, Haiti was the ONLY country in the Americas on the United Nations list of Least Developed Countries. As if that's not enough, foreign aid makes up approximately 30%-40% of the national government's budget.

What we have here is an opportunity to make a difference in some kids' lives. So as we head into the holiday season and start thinking about all the decorations and gifts and travels that we are budgeting for, stop and think about Haiti for a minute and figure out how much you will give.